Maja Ruznic

Interviews by Brainard Carey

Photo by Brad Trone

Maja Ruznic (b. Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1983) fuses personal narrative, psychoanalysis, mythology, and esoteric thought into vivid paintings that hybridize figuration and abstraction. Painting variably with oils and gouache on immense and small scales alike, she extracts order from layers of diluted pigment. Ruznic’s practice is informed by her studies, from Slavic shamanism and alchemy to Jungian psychoanalysis and sacred geometry.
Imbued with a discordant beauty, her compositions emerge without a premeditated outcome. Ruznic’s introspective, mystical approach places her into a lineage of visionary
painters including Paul Klee and Hilma af Klint. Ruznic lives in Placitas, New Mexico.
Recent solo exhibitions include those held at Karma (New York, 2024, Los Angeles, 2023); Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque (2022); Karma, New York (2022); and Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, New Mexico (2021). Ruznic’s work is held in the collections of the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California; Dallas Art Museum; EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo, Finland; Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, New Mexico; Jiménez–Colón Collection, Puerto Rico; Portland Art Museum, Oregon; Rachofsky House, Dallas; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Her work was recently on view in the Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Maja Ruznic, On the Other Side, 2023, Oil on canvas, 100 x 150 x 2 1/2 inches, 254 x 381 x 6.35 cm. © Maja Ruznic. Courtesy the artist and Karma

Maja Ruznic, Arrival of Wild Gods II, 2023, Oil on canvas, 100 x 150 x 2 1/2 inches, 254 x 381 x 6.35 cm. © Maja Ruznic. Courtesy the artist and Karma

Maja Ruznic, Geometry of Sadness, 2023, Oil on canvas, 100 x 150 x 2 1/2 inches, 254 x 381 x 6.35 cm. © Maja Ruznic. Courtesy the artist and Karma

Maja Ruznic, Arrangement of a Nervous System, 2023, Gouache on paper, 16 3/8 x 11 5/8 inches, 41.59 x 29.53 cm. 24 x 29 1/4 inches, 60.96 x 74.30 cm (framed). © Maja Ruznic. Courtesy the artist and Karma